David Miller Guides South Africa To Four-Wicket Victory Over Netherlands

David Miller made a mind-over-matter fifty on a tough pitch as South Africa survived some anxious moments to beat their bogey team Netherlands by four wickets in the T20 World Cup on Saturday. This was South Africa's second consecutive win as they had defeated Sri Lanka by six wickets in their opening Group D match. After SA elected to bowl, pacer Ottneil Baartman registered his best bowling figures of 4 for 11 as South Africa produced a fine bowling effort to restrict Netherlands to 103 for nine. Despite some early hiccups, Miller (59 not out off 51) played a gem of an innings to guide South Africa home with a ball to spare. It was a torrid start to the run chase for South Africa as they lost Quinton de Kock in the first delivery via a run out. It came after a terrible mix-up with Reeza Hendricks.

Hendricks too didn't last long as he was castled by Logan van Beek in the next over.

If that was not enough, skipper Aiden Markram nicked a Vivian Kingma delivery to Scott Edwards behind the stumps in the next over.

The situation turned worse for South Africa when Henrich Klaasen was caught at deep backward square-leg by Tim Pringle off Kingma as SA slumped to 12 for 4 in the fifth over.

When the going was tough, experienced Miller and young gun Tristan Stubbs forged a crucial 65-run fifth-wicket partnership to keep South Africa in the race.

The duo played to the occasion and mostly tried to negotiate the bowlers, while Miller picked up a few boundaries and a six in between to keep the asking rate in check.

Despite losing wickets at the early stages, South Africa had the wherewithal to overwhelm the paltry target as Miller and Stubbs played according to the situation, without taking too many risks.

Stubbs and then Marco Jansen